E-Paper
High court directs Punjab to recruit physical education teachers by July 1
An advertisement to recruit physical education masters was issued in January 2022 and a merit list of candidates, who were eligible in terms of the advertisement and cleared the Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test-2 (PSTET-2) in December 2022, was prepared. But in August 2023, a corrigendum was issued that the requirement of PSTET-2 was not mandatory, a decision contested by the petitioners.
A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed an appeal filed by the state government against a single-judge order of January 30 and directed that recruitment process for appointment of 168 physical education teachers be completed by July 1.
Acting on a batch of petitions, a single-judge bench had on January 30 ordered that candidates who were eligible should be appointed. The bench also imposed a cost of ₹50,000 on the authorities to be recovered from the officer responsible for making changes in the eligibility conditions.
Lawyer Ranjit Singh Kalra said the advertisement for the recruitment of physical education masters (168 posts) was put out on January 1, 2022. The merit list of candidates, who were eligible in terms of the advertisement and cleared the Punjab State Teacher Eligibility Test-2 (PSTET-2) in December 2022, was prepared.
However, in August 2023, a corrigendum was issued that the requirement of passing the State Teacher Eligibility Test-2 (PSTET-2) was not mandatory, a decision contested by the original petitioners.
The corrigendum came as the state had argued that there is no PSTET conducted by the state government for physical education subject, hence, the condition was deleted from the advertisement.
In January 2023, acting on these petitions, the high court ruled that the requirement of passing PSTET-II laid down in the advertisement originally cannot be said in any manner to be illegal or unjustified and termed the corrigendum an “attempt to change the rule after the game has already been played” and directed that recruitment be completed in terms of original advertisement. It was against this order that the government had approached the division bench in March 2024.
Dismissing the appeal, the high court division bench said once the state itself had advertised the posts in question and made it compulsory to pass the PSTET, it could not have gone back on the same and open door to the candidates who sat in the written examination knowing that they were ineligible in pursuance to the advertisement. Now, the government has been told to proceed with the recruitment in terms of original advertisement and complete it by July 1.
